It’s December, time for joy, happiness, good cheer….
Posted By Paul on December 4, 2004
…so why am I feeling so blue and depressed? I wish it were as easy as some of my friends seem to think it is, and I could just flip a switch and suddenly everything would be happy happy, joy joy, but it just doesn't work that way.
I know I don't usually write much about this kind of stuff, lately I haven't written much of anything of my own, and I think I need to start again. As Rick says in his appropriately titled blog, this is [url=http://djword.blogspot.com/]Cheaper Than Therapy[/url].
And it's not all doom and gloom either. I'm not thinking about doing anything stupid or anything. And I've been concentrating/meditating a lot the last couple of days on Proverbs 4:23 as well as something that Max Lucado wrote about the importance of guarding my thoughts.
So I know that when the dark thoughts come sneaking around, I have to march them right up to Jesus and say, Stay or Go?
But there is still the overall sense of blue. I don't know how else to put it. Let me list some of the things that, when added together, seem to come out to that very blue.
The bank is threatening to repo the car.
The phone company is going to turn off the phone. (of course, then all the other bad phone calls wouldn't be able to get thru.)
The electricity may be turned off.
My medical card is no longer good because Deb makes a whopping $8 an hour.
My prescriptions that I need every month cost more that Deb makes in a month.
Deb's birthday is on the 16th of this month.
My youngest daughter's birthday is the 19th of this month.
My oldest daughter's birthday is the 28th of this month.
I've got $5 in my pocket right now.
I know we'll make it thru, it's just hard, looking at it from this side, to see how.
We know return to our usual upbeat style articles and posts…..
Life is difficult. I’ve been reading an interesting assortment of books that fit together nicely. One of them is “Waking the Dead” by John Eldredge.
A quote for you:
We Are At War
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)
Have you ever wondered why Jesus married those two statements? By all means, God intends life for you. But right now that life is opposed. The offer is life, but you are going to have to fight for it because there’s an Enemy in your life with a different agenda.
Most people get stuck at some point because God appears to have abandoned them. He is not coming through. Speaking about her life with a mixture of disappointment and cynicism, a young woman recently said to me, ‘God is rather silent right now.’ Yes, it’s been aweful. I don’t discount that for a moment. She is unloved; she is unemployed; she is under a lot.
But her attitude strikes me as deeply naive, on the level of someone caught in a cross fire who asks, rather shocked and with a sense of betrayal, ‘God, why don’t you make them stop firing at me?’
I’m sorry, but that’s not where we are right now. It’s not where we are in the story. That day is coming, later, when the lion shall lie down with the lamb and we’ll beat our swords into plowshares. For now, it’s a bloody battle.
Eldredge later tells the story of how life had thrown him a major curve, and how the battle was waged:
I wanted to get angry. I was hurt. Run through with a sword. Then, like a wolf in the night sniffing at my door, I could feel Resentment trying to get in. After all, it seemed like a justifiable response. Just as I was lifting the latch, I remembered the Lord’s warning. I barred the door, refused to let Resentment in. Ten minutes later, something else came scrounging for admittance, I was tempted to turn to Self-Reproach. Even though I really didn’t think I’de done anything wrong, I was willing to take blame nonetheless. No…This is noy your fault. Later, I wanted to go to Pride. I was cearly right. No, do not turn to Pride.
[But the further along I went, I felt] Anger, Hurt, Resentment, Indignation, False Guilt–the whole nasty menagerie, like a pack of hungry coyotes circling the camp. Bar the Door.
Falling into bed that night, I felt as though I’d been guided by some wise Ranger, like Aragorn of the Lord of the Rings, through a dark forest, with a hundred wrong turns at every side.
I felt rescued.